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Director's Cut

Kate Bush

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Customer Reviews

Just terrible

A serious misstep by Bush. There is no real direction in this album, despite it's title. I just don't know what the heck she was thinking here.

Kate Bush

Excellent! Love Kate Bush, beautiful music!
Recommended.

It didn't have to happen, but it did, and it's good.

This album isn't fair. That is to say, its very existence implies some inadequacy in the two albums from which these reworked songs are taken. And while I'm certain that many listeners see it that way, I personally don't see what is keeping "The Sensual World" from the classic status attained by "Hounds of Love" and "The Dreaming", and "The Red Shoes" is at least two-thirds excellent. But, for the benefit of those listeners who don't see it my way, with whom Kate clearly sympathizes to some extent, there is this collection.

Regardless of whether or not it was necessary, "Director's Cut" justifies its own existence by being very good. It is of similar value to live albums, of which there are none from Kate's '89-'93 period, in that it offers alternate readings of familiar material. The reinterpretations here vary from interesting to revelatory. Highlights include "Flower of the Mountain", which benefits from being reunited with its intended Joyce text (it was first heard as the title track of "The Sensual World"); "Lily", which takes a step up the soul ladder; "Deeper Understanding", which breaks from its traditional form completely at the point where Kate begins scatting over a harmonica solo; and a spectacular "Top of the City", which rocks harder than anything from the original "Red Shoes".

It should be noted that Kate begins the second half of "Director's Cut" with a double shot of uncharacteristic perversity. Her classic "This Woman's Work", possibly the most accessible and recognizable track in Kate's catalogue, becomes the most difficult track on this album. The gorgeous melody is still there, but it is now performed with great rhythmic freedom and is set against a sparse electric piano backdrop. The original's most iconic moment, the choral refrain, is nowhere to be heard here. The result is difficult, but deeply felt and intense: not an improvement on the original, but a worthwhile diversion. Kate follows this with her new take on the "This Woman's Work" of "The Red Shoes": "Moments of Pleasure". This has been similarly deconstructed but more successfully. The chorus has been entirely excised, and the main piano riff decentralized. The chorus never comes, but the effect of the riff's absence, only to be heard finally at the end of the track is undeniable.

Nothing here is bad, but some tracks are weak. "Rubberband Girl" is the only track that is a notable letdown; the energy of the original has been replaced by a relaxed, bluesy feel. I won't say it doesn't work, but it doesn't work that WELL.

If you don't like "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes", you might dig this album.

If you do like "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes", you'll probably dig this album.

We all win.

Biography

Born: July 30, 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent, England

Genre: Pop

Years Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s

One of the most successful and popular solo female performers to come out of England during the last several decades of the 20th century, Kate Bush was also one of the most unusual, with her keening vocals and unusually literate and complex body of songs. As a girl, Catherine Bush studied piano and violin while attending the St. Joseph's Convent Grammar School in Abbey Wood in South London. She also amused herself playing an organ in the barn behind her parents' house. By the time she was a teenager,...
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